U.K. Pirate Party caves to music industry in Pirate Bay suit

The Pirate Party U.K. (PPUK) has bowed to pressure from its sworn enemy, the pro-copyright British music industry.

Just two weeks earlier, U.K. Party leader Loz Kaye had promised that his organization "always stood up against site blocking." But the Pirates' legal counsel, Ralli, announced Wednesday that, under threat of multiple lawsuits from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the PPUK would no longer provide proxy access to the Pirate Bay, a site that facilitates peer-to-peer filesharing (but has no direct relationship with the PPUK). The U.K. officially blocked access to the Pirate Bay in April.

“Despite attempts by elected members to resolve this situation, the law at present is clear and makes any decision to continue hosting the proxy untenable," Ralli's Francis Nash said in a statement.

It's a major blow to the PPUK, which had drawn a line in the sand on providing Pirate Bay access. As digital activists, fighting lobbyists and providing access to blocked websites are among the Party's key priorities. "[W]e hand censorship powers to governments and courts at our peril," Kaye had announced in a fundraising video.

Some have accused the BPI of playing dirty, since it directly targeted six members of the Party with lawsuits. The BPI wasn't well-loved to begin with, considering its sister organization in the U.S., the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), has a history of fighting for vigorous online copyright enforcement at the expense of a more open Internet.

Neither the BPI nor the PPUK replied to the Daily Dot's request for comment, and the BPI's official news releases don't even acknowledge the lawsuits. The Ralli statement offered a vague look at what the future holds for the PPUK:

This is not the outcome the party wanted however, any challenge to this proposed action would make it financially impossible for the party to deal with other issues for which they actively campaign on a daily basis.

The Pirate Party strongly believe that site blocking is both disproportionate and ineffective and will continue to lobby for digital rights and their wider manifesto.